


33 Sweeps

by Nutcase



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, F/M, Hemospectrum, Moirails
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nutcase/pseuds/Nutcase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, when you were both six sweeps old, young and naive, it didn't seem to matter. The blood running through your veins was an afterthought, your castes unimportant in the face of the bond that united you. She'd always said you would be moirails "furever", and you'd believed her.</p><p>How wrong you both were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	33 Sweeps

Somehow, when you were both six sweeps old, young and naive, it didn't seem to matter. The blood running through your veins was an afterthought, your castes unimportant in the face of the bond that united you. She'd always said you would be moirails "furever", and you'd believed her.

How wrong you both were.

You're strong, stronger than any troll you've ever met, and so you'd sworn to shield her from anything and anyone who meant her harm. But against the passage of time you found yourself powerless; all the strength in the world is useless in the face of an immaterial foe, one that cannot be beaten or killed, and which stops for nothing.

As a blueblood, you're safe, of course, for at least a couple more centuries. Youth and vitality flow through your aristocratic veins, and not a single wrinkle mars your flawless ashen skin. But it only ever makes the lines etched into her face seem that much worse. She would always laughs it off, tell you she felt fine, but day after day, she'd tire a little faster, run a little slower, and the aches and pains she tried to hide from you would multiply. 

Lives end.

It had never really occurred to you until she had one day, when you were both curled up in her pile of furs after a night of hunting, absentmindedly reached up to tuck a lock of pure white hair behind her ear. Instantly, and with mounting horror, you'd realized what the rift between your blue and her green meant. The differences between trolls and the robots you made were slim. Rusted joints, a cog or a gear malfunction, or even a programming error could reduce flawless machinery to a useless heap of scrap metal. A troll was just as fallible, if not more. Both so very delicate, fragile, breakable. Except, unlike one of your robots, your moirail could never be replaced.

At 21 sweeps, her stiffening joints had become a liability while hunting, and you'd begged Nepeta to let her lusus hunt for her. She'd eventually given in with an eyeroll, still the stubborn girl you'd first fallen in pale with, despite the crows' feet and laugh lines.

At 23 sweeps she'd tripped and her femur had snapped like a twig. Weakened bones. It might have healed properly with medical care, but the best an olive-blood could hope for in the event of severe injury is a swift culling, so you had kept her hidden away and set her leg to the best of your abilities. The break had mended. The limp had stayed.

At 26 sweeps, worried by her extended absence, Nepeta had asked you to look for Pounce, and you'd found her corpse in the forest, eyes glazed and crawling with voracious buzzbeasts. Old age, you supposed. You'd buried her together. After that day, Nepeta's smiles came few and far between, and her previously common fits of laughter disappeared entirely.

At 29 sweeps her bloodpusher had failed and she'd been clinically dead for several minutes. Only luck and a few emergency valve modifications improvised from spare parts had allowed her to live. "How long can you keep this up for, Equius?" she'd asked you, softly, when she had been able to speak again. You'd given her no answer; you didn't know.

And now, at 33 sweeps, she's stopped eating the meals you bring to her cave. No amount of cajoling can get her to take a single bite. She never sleeps and yet is never truly awake. Her skin is like tissue paper, her bones frail as a wingbeast's, and you dare not hold her for she looks as though the slightest touch could turn her to dust. But when tilts her head up and looks you in the eye, it's with all the lucidity of her youth.

"Equius," she breathes, "you have to purromise me something,"

"Anything," you say.

"Let me die," asks your moirail, "please. I know if I let you, you would replace every failing part until I was more metal than flesh, an automaton gifted with immortality,"

"Yes," you reply, "yes, and you would stay alive, here, with me!"

She smiles at you softly. "No, Equius. That's not a life, or at least not one worth living,"

She reaches up with one hand and paps you gently on the cheek, her small palm velvety-smooth. "I've lived my life. Thirty-three wonderful sweeps, Equius! I couldn't have possibly wished for a better one. I'm happy, don't you see?"

You take her hand in yours and hold on as tightly as you dare.

"Then... why are you crying?"

She touches her fingertips to her cheeks and feels the moisture there.

"Oh," is all she says. She lies still, dumbstruck. Blinks. More green tears, running down her face in rivulets. "Oh,"

A shudder passes through her body. Her eyebrows knit together tightly and her eyes squeeze shut; for a moment the colour leaches out of her face. 

Your concern is a immediate, the need to comfort her gripping, followed immediately by the worry that her matchstick frame would be crushed in your arms.

She makes up your mind for you. "Equius, hold me. Please,"

"But I might-"

"It doesn't matter. Not anymore,"

So you do, delicately, cradling her like a child, far too small and too fragile and too young for this, all of it. She curls up, tucks her tail in, nuzzles up to your chest like there's nowhere else she'd rather be, and before long, she's purring, a deep low rumble that resonates throughout the cave like a lullaby.

"I'm sorry, Nepeta," you say.

Her response is muffled against your shirt. "Nonsense. You've always been a purrfect moirail,"

You're the one crying now, blue tears to match the blue blood you wish you could trade for hers. You hold her close, even as she falls asleep, claws kneading at the cloth of your shirt, even as the purring stops, you smooth her fine white hair over and over, even as her skin cools and her limbs stiffen, you just can't let go.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated, and thanks for reading!


End file.
